system. Several other memos questioned
whether the first year’s schedule (which
included a screening of the Harrison Ford
film Witness, a flea-market expedition and
treasure hunt) was too ambitious; another
suggested “fireside chats” might have a
better chance of long-term popularity if the
issue of alcohol consumption was discreetly
introduced later rather than sooner. On
the challenge of keeping students engaged,
a handwritten letter from a Bryn Mawr
residential college administrator cautioned
that while “fireside chats” are a great idea,
their location matters. She described
witnessing “large (and I do mean large)
crowds of people in TV lounges” watching

Cheers on Thursday nights rather than
conversing. “I’d hate to compete with a
television set,” she concluded.

Rather than visiting local flea markets,today’s students travel to attend Broadwayshows and visit the National September 11

Memorial & Museum in New York City,
and to Washington, D.C.’s National Gallery
of Art. They participate in Stop the Hate
marches and service projects in Lewisburg.

And the difficult leap from high school to
college is reduced to a step.

“I struggled with the adjustment and
the heightened expectations of college,”
says Megan Grossman ’ 19, a chemical
engineering major who joined the Society

For that, I’ll always be thankful. It madeBucknell a home away from home for me.”Grossman was so sold on her first-yearexperience in the Society & TechnologyCollege, she became a sophomore residentfellow in the college’s alumni housing.

“Joining a residential college was oneof the best decisions I made my first yearat Bucknell. I want to make it a positiveexperience for other first years,” she says. “Ilike putting effort into something I believein, and I truly believe in the residentialcolleges. It’s really rewarding for me.”For Peeler, therein lies the reward, 30years later and counting.

“It illustrates that we shouldn’t be afraid
to try something new,” he says. “You can
work on an idea and develop it and tweak
it and, ultimately, there’s a good chance it
will persist and have a positive impact for
many years.”

Andrew Chahrour ’06 has amorning commute many wouldenvy.

After finishing his usual
breakfast of greens and eggs,
downing a cup of coffee and saying
goodbye to his wife, Alexandra
Madsen ’08, Chahrour heads
out the back door and begins his
half-mile hike into the hills, never
touching pavement on his way to
the nonprofit farm and orchard
above the San Francisco Bay that
he manages.

The farm is small — just 5
acres — but its size belies its rich
biodiversity. Chahrour believes it
might contain the most diverse
assemblage of certified organic
fruit-bearing shrubs and trees in
North America.

“You name it, we probably havemore than one variety,” Chahrourmuses. “We have 57 varieties offigs, 62 varieties of pomegranates,plums, apricots, peaches, apples,pears, persimmons, walnuts — it’san incredibly diverse collection.”The farm is one of fiveprograms of Planting Justice, anenvironmental and social justicenonprofit Chahrour joined asthe fourth member in 2010. (Itnow employs 41.) Many of thetrees Chahrour and his teamhave planted are still maturing,but already he’s making cuttingsthat can be cloned in a nurseryand eventually sold for $60 each.The farm will also supply localfarm-to-table restaurants andprovide produce for community-supported-agriculture (CSA)programs. Chahrour hopes iteventually will even serve asan incubator for food-basedsmall businesses. Those effortswill support Planting Justice’seducation, empowerment andoutreach initiatives.

“We’re working on improvinga food system that is broken,”Chahrour says.

The organization views food asa medium for interacting with thepublic school and prison systems.It has created an edible gardeninside San Quentin Prison andemploys 14 people who were onceinmates there — all of whom nowearn at least $20 an hour. PlantingJustice also runs an educationand after-school program in low-income school districts that hasdeveloped a 15-week curriculum,as well as campus outreach andfundraising efforts.

At Bucknell, Chahrour majored
in environmental science and
was in the Environmental
Residential College. He says
a Residential College seminar
taught by Professor Ben Marsh
P’04, geography, offered an early
epiphany about conventional
agriculture — a field for which his
current work offers an alternative.

“I had never considered thatagriculture was something weought to consider a humanimpact,” says Chahrour, who grewup in the exurbs of Cincinnati,Ohio. “In conventional agriculturethere is clear-cutting and levelingand straightening of creeks — I hadnever thought about any of that.It opened my eyes to one of themost prominent land uses in thelandscape that I knew best but hadBesides his work with PlantingJustice, Chahrour is a partner inWild and Radish LLC, a collectivethat owns the land the farm sitson (which it leases to PlantingJustice for $1 a year) as well asseveral acres the group hopes todevelop into a sustainable-housingcommunity. Andrew and Alex livein the first of four homes plannedfor 1 acre of their property. Healso runs an online retail business,Clean Water Components, whichsells equipment for reusing “gray”water produced by domesticactivities such as showering andlaundry for landscape and gardenirrigation.

“I’m inspired and instructed bynature all the time,” Chahrour says.“It feels like a calling, really, to beinvolved in a movement that isuplifting both the environment andthe people in it.” — Matt HughesWatch an aerial video of thefarm in the Bucknell Magazineapp or at bucknell.edu/PlantingJustice.